Worth reading even if you are not a Presbyterian, and particularly if you are interested in youth, massive youth events, music genre debates in the church, and the beauty of a denomination having both a left and right wing to inform each other.

First, John wrote this post.

And then he followed up with this one.

(I know I do…I think it’s about to get bumped up into the category: Books-that-have-kinda-saved-my-life.)

The Sabbath World by Judith Shulevitz.

I checked it out of the library yesterday and I can barely put it down AND I think might have to buy my own copy.

I’ve always been convinced that Sabbath in some form is something Christians need to do and need to start thinking about more seriously–especially now because we are a stressed out people. It helps a bit that I was brought up in a church culture just one generation removed from some pretty hard-core Sabbath-following practices.

There’s sociology, theology, philosophy (Kierkegaard, even!), history, autobiography…Wow…

The pithy quotes are amazing:

“The Sabbath–God’s claim against our time–implies that time has an ethical dimension.”

“A full-bodied red wine is what a poet might call the objective correlative of the Sabbath…”

“The rabbis say the Sabbath is a taste of the world to come. Me, I say it’s an aftertaste of infancy.”

On Saturday, my Mom was explaining this to prepare her:

Grandma: “It’s Palm Sunday, when Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey, and people waved palm branches. So, tomorrow, there will be palms and even a donkey.”

Zora: “Will Jesus be there?”

Grandma (who says she had to think about this one): “Well, Jesus is always there.”

Later in the conversation, it became apparent that Jesus’ presence may not have been so much a theological issue as a practical one.

Zora: “Can I ride the donkey?”

(Because, if Jesus wasn’t going to be riding the donkey, you would think that the church would have the good sense to allow the cute 3 year old to serve as a back up.)

So, in an effort to make myself feel better, I’ve spent the day thinking about things that would qualify as “good things”, little things, that are happy-making.

This is sort of my cross between Martha Stewart or Oprah’s columns and that song:

When among life’s troubles you are tempest-tossed
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost,
Count your blessings, name them one by one
Count your many blessings see what God has done.

(However, I worry that these particular little blessings may not be religious or theological enough. Whatever…seriously, it’s been a weird day.)

And here we go: some good things in the midst of a very odd, discombobulating week…

(1) I found this perfume that smells like lilacs and dandilions. How awesome is that? It’s maybe just a hair cloying, but it smells like springtime outside.

(2) We’re doing a craft with jello tomorrow night for our lent thing with kids. Downside: I have a lot of jello molds to make tonight. Upside: edible, wiggly craft.

(3) I think spring is starting. I like how it smells. I’m looking forward to it smelling a little more like # 1.

(4) The short sized-drink at Starbucks. Seriously, it takes away about ten cents of the guilt. And it’s cute.

(5) Seed catalogues.

(6) I have good colleagues.

(7) I would challenge anyone who works at a church to say that their administrative staff is better than mine.

(8) A kid from my youth group called just to get some information about a date, and I hadn’t talked to her in a while, and it was just really nice to remember that I LIKE my youth groupers.

(9) Erik tucked in a tag that was hanging out of my shirt last night, which reminded me that one of the first times he ever touched me, a few weeks before we started dating a long long time ago, was to reach over and tuck in a tag while we were sitting in a lecture together in college.

(10) I will squeeze in a little vacation time this weekend.

Fox Valley Presbyterian Church

(Originally Preached on Lent 1C, February 21, 2010)

Temptation is not really a dirty word anymore. Think about it: it’s a word used to brand and identify: chocolates; resorts; a dating service in the UK ; there’s even a men’s deodorant line that has a scent named: “dark temptation”

Think about it: in all these cases, the implication if the word is not the the product is something t be avoided, but something to be craved. Because once you cave in and buy whatever it is being sold, it’s going to be good. Chocolatey good. Sexy and fabulous.

Temptations are not something bad…they are things that, when you finally step over, you will enjoy.

Even Tiger Woods weighs in the word this weekend….in his apology to the general public on Friday, he said this: “ I felt that I had worked hard throughout my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.” Now, I know, taken in full context, Tiger was admitting that what he did was wrong, but do you hear it? Temptations can be something we deserve to enjoy if we’ve worked hard enough.

I’m not going to make a long argument this morning trying to undo everything the culture around us has done to the word temptation. I’m not going to battle the word, and try to point out how the true temptations around us are not things to be enjoyed, but pitfalls where we get stuck (although, Tiger Woods is an awfully good example of that…)

Reclaiming the word can wait for another day.

But for now, how about a little reframing? Leaving the idea of temptation aside for now, maybe we can look at this story about Jesus a little differently.

What if the story of Jesus in the desert is not as much about temptation, as it is about identity?

This idea of 40 days in the desert, 40 being the Biblical shorthand for “copmleteness”; 40 days without food, with little water; 40 days completely alone, it’s the idea that Jesus is stripped down to the most basic nature of who he is. Jesus at his most basic. No expectations from anyone about who he ought to be. Every last thing has been stripped bare, and he is his most genuine self.

And this is when the devil comes…with 3 challenges.

Turn these stones to bread; Gain power; Test God’s faithfulness

(Notice, on the surface, except for the part about worshipping Satan, that none of these temptations are things we would quickly classify as big sins…)

And, in fact, each of them has some little twist of truth…Jesus is, after all, the bread of life; Jesus is, after all, the one to whom every knee shall bow; Jesus is, after all, the firstborn of the resurrection, the one who God rescues and raises from the dead. In a strange way, by giving in to the devil, Jesus could have accomplished some version of all these things that he is called to do.

It’s not so much a matter of refusing the results the devil is promising. It’s more about the way they happen. It’s not about the ends, it’s about the means.

And Jesus’s response to these things is to go back to the most basic grounding of who he is.

So notice the foundation he takes for his response:

“It is written: One does not live by bread alone.”

“It is written: WOrship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

It has been said: Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Three times, what Jesus comes back to, the most elemental thing about who he is…3 times, he quotes Torah, Scripture. 3 times he goes back to the book of Deuteronomy. Even the third time when the devil tries to match the game by quoting the Psalms, Jesus simply comes back with an unwavering answer, that the Book, SCripture, is the center of who he is, the solid place where he stands.

This is not just a matter of dry quoting, rote memorization, with no body or spirit behind it.

This is the book Jesus lives. He has lived his life, a good Jewish boy in Nazareth, immersed in this book and the story of his people. ANd so, by the third time he responds, he doesn’t just say, “it is written.” He packs more punch. “It has been SAID.”

Scripture is not just something written, waiting silent on the page. Scripture is alive. From the mouth of the Holy Spirit in the beginning, it was said, and What it said was so important that it was passed down, mouth to mouth, until it was written. And over and over and over again, it has been read, silently and out loud, over and over and over, it has been SAID. It is not moldy words on a page. It is the word that has been said, breathing and real and alive.

In fact, this is the Book that Jesus is. Jesus, Word made flesh, says John’s Gospel.

In fact, this the Book that we are.

Sometimes, it takes an outsider to make the most insightful points about us. ANd our relationship to the Bible is something that Muslims perhaps have understood better than we have. Islam refers to Jews and CHristians as “people of the book” (and, traditionally, says that for this, we ought to be respected and even protected within majority Muslim societies). And did you know that the Western value placed on literacy for everyone in a society has its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Think about it: this book is so very important and fundamental to our faith system, that Christianity truly cannot survive unless people know the text. That means either: we have to have methods for your average person to memorize this whole book; or we have to have a population that is literate enough to read the book.

And moreover, this Book is a story about us. Unlike some religions where the stories are about the gods and their doings, or one great teacher and his lessons, this book has an overarching story in it about God’s people.

And every once in awhile, the book reminds us that it’s not just a story it is our story.

What Jesus quotes back to the Devil comes from the OT book of Deuteronomy. It’s not the most exciting reading in the OT. it’s mostly laws. And, laws that are being given a second time.

But late in the book, there’s a reminder that this is story:

When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
It’s a passage about religions ceremony and obligation. But notice what it does: you don’t just show up and hand over your gift. You have to set a context. And the context for everyone is this: telling the story. Here’s who I am and where I came from. This is my identity. It’s why I follow all the laws in this book. It’s who my parents and my ancestors were; and it’s who I am.

We are the people of this book, this Bible. We are people with a story. This is our identity. And without that identity, we cannot face up to temptation.

And 40 days into his desert time, this is where Jesus finds his identity, stable footing: he is a person of this book. A book that is not just written, but a book that is said.

Lent is 40 days…40 days in large part because Jesus was in the desert for 40 days. So the idea is that this is another way for us to participate in the story….to think of these 40 days as 40 days to walk alongside Jesus in fasting, in stripping away things so that we can know who we truly are. It is another way that we are encouraged to make this Book a living and breathing thing, a way that we invited to enter the story.

The truth is that the Bible is a terrible self-help book by the world’s standards. On the face of it, Jesus’ choices looks like a failure in the eyes of the world.

He chooses to preach and teach in a backwater part of the world, with backward, confused, often dense student-disciples. He chooses to keep walking toward Jerusalem even when it’s clear that this path is a death-wish.
He is killed as a common criminal, in a manner that is shameful and disgusting.
It looks like utter failure.

But in the weakness and failure is power and victory.

And maybe this is the reason that for 40 days we are called into the desert. It’s not about becoming more powerful. It’s about becoming less. It’s not about becoming who we think we should be, it’s about becoming who God thinks we should be.

And it is such an odd journey, walking with Jesus through the desert, through Galilee, and the road to inevitable death in Jerusalem, such an odd journey…but it’s the journey in which we learn who we truly are.

I’m not sure we can take that journey without the right grounding. And the only grounding is in the story, the Book.

The hymn says: “How firm a foundation you saints of the Lord is laid for your faith in his excellent Word.” It’s an old hymn, but a true one. The desert can be a rocky, uneven place.

But here is the Book…a solid place to stand

It has been written.

And it has been said.

It is who we are.

Amen.

First, I am grateful for my ER, my access to medical care, my reliable car, the general goodness of God, etc.

But I’m really really sleep deprived. So this thought is where my brain has been wandering off to.

If parents bring their kiddo in during the night due to, say, an overdose of grape cough medicine, and you have to hook up said kiddo to monitor her vitals, and especially if you are rather confident that said kiddo will be fine but it’s just a precaution, shouldn’t there be somewhere comfy for the parents who are keeping vigil to snooze? Because then, the next morning when our kiddo wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready face the day, well, we are not so ready. And we are a bit frayed around the edges and not really on top of our parenting game.

Again, I don’t want to diminish my thankfulness for what I have, but I’m just really really tired and my better-rested child is not particularly sympathetic.

Thanks!

Our bedroom is at/below ground level, with the windows above our bed facing onto a street that gets plowed a lot when it snows. The plows shake our bedroom. And it’s been snowing, so we had plowing action last night, too.

When it happened, at about 4:00am, I thought…plow? No, building shaking. A snowplow must have hit our building.

Then I rolled over and went back to sleep. That’s right: I thought a snowplow hit my building and I went back to sleep.

Checking in with other folks this morning, many of them had the good sense to hop out of bed and look out their windows, or check on their children and other breakables.

I would like to attribute my calm to having been raised by a man who grew up in Southern California and told us about earthquakes is if they were no particularly big deal, the small ones at least.

But, it might just be that I like my sleep.

The tally so far this weekend?

Did a lot of dishes, but then made a whole lot dirty while I was making a pot of soup.

Cut out the fabric for Zora’s long-delayed Hello Kitty pajamas.

Dyed the eyelet trim for said pajamas hot pink (turns out that hot pink eyelet trim is not a standard part of the stock at fabric stores).

Ran two miles.

Crammed in one last church meeting before Friday, being the real and actual day off, began.

On tap for tomorrow?

Take Zora to kindermusik and swimming lessons.

More laundry than I should ever have to deal with.

Sew kitty pajamas.

Do dishes from soup-making.

Get bedroom under control.

Which brings me to the point that Friday is, in fact, my Sabbath. Honestly, I’ve just gotten to the point where I’ve accepted that Sabbath for women has probably never meant complete and total rest. If I snag 15 minutes of Sabbath, that’s going to have to do it for me.

I remember, during Zora’s first summer, realizing that beach reading would not be the same for another 10 or 15 years. Instead of cruising through novels, I was happy to get in a few pages of a short story.

On Sunday, one of our 3 year olds (I’ll call her Claire) was sitting in the second row of pews with her parents. Next to her was one of our church elders, Harrison, who is also a pillar of the congregation in the best sense of the word and one of the few people I have ever met who is completely at home, able, and amazing with kids from age 0 to 25.

When this family went up for communion, Claire didn’t take any. But, after they got back to the pew, they saw a dad and his 3 year old go up and the 3 year old took communion (OK, full disclosure, that was my kid…who is not about to give up any chance to get her hands on extra grape juice). When Claire saw Zora taking communion she was a little peeved that she hadn’t gotten to. Parents sort of wondered about this, and Harrison explained that current PCUSA policy is that it’s up to parents to decide when kids may take communion, and if it was OK with them, Claire could.

Meanwhile, we were done with serving at the front, and my assistant and I were at the back serving an older gentleman who hadn’t been able to leave his pew. Harrison brought Claire to the back and walked her through the procedure, but she took two pieces first, and then lost them in the cup, and we just scooted those two into the bread basket to give her another chance with a new piece of bread.

It was a time I was really grateful to have a theology of communion that allowed me not to feel really anxious about the cup spilling, bread not being eaten, etc!

I love our church’s policy on communion and children (CRCNA folks, take heed as you make this big decision!). I love that every time we serve communion we might have a child who is taking it for the first time (in fact, I suspect there was another three year old who was partaking for the first time on Sunday).

I am grateful that we had an alert and loving elder in the pew who knew the policy and guided the family through it.

I am sad that we haven’t done a good enough job of educating our congregation, so that some of our parents don’t know how this works. We might need to fix that.

But I really don’t want to fix it by instituting some kind of class. Because I’m almost certain that in a church our size, we would start to have people come to the class at a certain age. And then the whole thing would get formalized and ritualized. And then we would have some sort of big “event”.

And I don’t want it be an event. I love that I can’t even remember Zora’s first time taking communion. I do remember what it was like to put that little bit of purple-stained bread in her mouth. I’m pretty certain it was her first solid food.

I love that Claire’s first communion was quiet and sweet and absolutely perfect, and that this part of her life with Christ was accidentally and providentially bound to the people who just happened to be in the pew with her that day.

1 Thessalonians 2:13-15

Given than I can’t make it through 4 weeks without waiting to break out the Christmas music, the last 2000 years of waiting are pretty incredible.

I appreciate that the Epistle writers have this constant sense of urgency…they think the end is coming soon.

We, however, are getting a little lax at waiting with any sense of urgency.

Sometimes I wonder if Paul and the other epistle writers would be bothered that their sense of “soon” was not a few years, but thousands.

But here’s something amazing…look at the thrill they had in the first fruits of faith, and at watching it multiply.

Could they ever have imagined the crazy-weedy growth that all this waiting has produced?

And wouldn’t they be delighted with it?